


Unleaving

by ancientreader



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Drug Use, M/M, both fun and not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-01
Updated: 2015-01-01
Packaged: 2018-03-04 19:08:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3084167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ancientreader/pseuds/ancientreader
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everybody used to be young and (relatively) undamaged.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unleaving

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Neurotoxia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neurotoxia/gifts).



“That’s the third time this autumn.”

Sherlock is bent over the sink, forcing his hands to stay put on the ceramic instead of rubbing at his chest, which hurts. He doesn’t turn toward John, because he knows John is leaning on the doorjamb with his arms folded, making a face.

“It’s not even bloody December yet.”

Now Sherlock does raise one hand, but only to flap it over his shoulder: _Dismissed._

“Fucking _hell,_ Sherlock. The Work, okay. The Work is dangerous, fine, both of us have every reason to know it – ”

“ – And we voluntarily pay the price, tra la tra la, but to deliberately engage in activities deleterious to one’s health blather blather blather and more pious blather!” Sherlock slams his open palm against the bathroom wall. If John’s hearing were just a shade keener he would be able to hear the wheeze as Sherlock forces his breathing steady. Sherlock manages not to give John the satisfaction of hearing him cough, but it’s a near thing.

“Right. Fine. Decades of research, decades of epidemiological data, but you don’t like what it’s got to tell you so too bad for data. And too bad for me, because I’m the one who’s got to be around to watch you get sick, and – Christ. I’m off to work. You do what you like, what else is new.”

“Guilt,” Sherlock sneers into the mirror. _“Nursemaiding.”_ He stays in the loo until the flat door has slammed and John has stumped down the seventeen steps and banged the front door as well. In his outrage, John will have forgotten his keys, so he’ll get worked up all over again when he returns home to find he can’t get in. Sherlock scrubs at his face (a tic borrowed from John; yet another thing in his life whose source is John) and goes to get dressed.

*

Sherlock’s feet carry him along the Marylebone Road till it becomes the Euston Road and he comes to himself, almost in front of the Wellcome Collection, where he stops and lights a cigarette. _Nostalgia, really?_ he asks himself, in Mycroft’s voice. Yes, really. He turns right, toward Russell Square, ignoring the burn in his lungs when he inhales and the self-righteous glares when he flicks the butt into the street.

Unusually for late November, the day is sunny, but it’s nevertheless brisk, and the bench Sherlock wants to occupy is untenanted: near the square’s central fountain, facing north. He is irritated to find that his pleasure in the bench is not merely aesthetic: though the walk from Baker Street took well under an hour, his right knee hurts and sitting is a relief. He takes out his cigarettes and studies the box; lets himself drift; lets the year be 1995.

*

The month is June. Victor is sat on the bench at Sherlock’s right, close enough that Sherlock can feel the air move around his torso whenever he shifts. They are pretending to ignore each other, staring down at their chemistry texts. Victor has a nose for any instance of Sherlock’s being able to maintain two sentences’ worth of focus, and whenever he catches Sherlock concentrating he pokes Sherlock’s foot with his own. _Poke. Poke-poke._ “Leave _off,_ ” Sherlock says, but Victor’s perceptiveness extends to the ability to tell the difference between Sherlock annoyed, and Sherlock pretending not to be amused. Besides: June. London’s parks are greened out and breathing life, and so ( _fanciful,_ Sherlock thinks, frowning inwardly) is Sherlock, who has, after several weeks in Victor’s company, at last drawn, albeit tentatively, the conclusion that Victor quite likes him. In the way that includes “wants to have sex with him.” Many people have expressed a wish to have sex with Sherlock; there is a much smaller set comprising persons who like Sherlock; and the two sets overlap at just one point: Victor Trevor. This would be interesting even merely as a novelty, but … yes, all right, Sherlock can admit that he likes Victor too. In the way that includes “wants to have sex with him.”

 _Poke. Poke-poke. Poke-poke-poke._ Sherlock is trying to frown but his lips twitch and Victor says, “Gotcha!” and leans over to drop a kiss onto Sherlock’s cheek. The fountain in the sunshine, the brush of Victor’s lips: Sherlock’s face suddenly warm. “Come back to mine, then,” Victor says, smiling. “We’ll open all the windows and it’ll be just like we’re in the park, only with a bed.”

Even though Sherlock has been expecting such a proposition, he’s caught off guard enough (the sunshine; the fountain; the warmth of his face) to say the first truthful thing that comes to mind: “I never have.”

Victor runs a finger along the top of Sherlock’s thigh. It’s absurdly thrilling. “Lovely day for it then, I’d say.”

Sherlock closes his book.

*

Victor’s flat opens onto the building’s back garden; the campanulas are blooming white and lavender, and the scent of honeysuckle, almost too heavy, drifts on the sunlit air. Uncertain of the protocol – Victor has pointed him toward the bed, probably they are going to have sex, but is it getting ahead of things simply to lie down? – Sherlock sits up against the headboard while Victor looks around for his stash.

“Well, hell,” Victor says finally. He shows Sherlock an inch-and-a-half length of partly smoked joint. “This is why we must always take careful inventory of our supplies. I haven’t so much as another seed in the place. But never mind” – and he bounces onto the bed so that he’s straddling Sherlock and face to face – “frugality’s a virtue.”

“So I’ve heard,” Sherlock replies, weakly. Victor is really very close, close enough for Sherlock to see just how fine is the grain of his skin, close enough to see that one of his lower lashes has fallen out and is held in place only because it’s resting against the one next to it. Victor’s eyes are clear and smiling. He closes the distance between himself and Sherlock and kisses him again, on the mouth this time. That makes two kisses in all, but Sherlock has hopes of losing count this afternoon.

“Your task,” Victor says, in imposing tones, “is an easy one for a man of your vast intellect. Shall I brief you?”

“Ye-es.” Is Victor teasing him? It seems so, but then Victor kisses him – a third kiss! – on the cheek, again. The opposite cheek from the first kiss, as though Victor intends a survey of sorts.

“So, we’re going to have to share this pathetic little end of a smoke, as you see. And as we wish to extract the maximum benefit from it, efficiency must be our watchword.” _Kiss._ (Mouth; lingering for approximately two seconds.) “Accordingly: shotgun.”

Sherlock has never heard this term before. Not in the context of smoking marijuana, that is.

“As indicated heretofore,” Victor continues, “your part in this collaboration is simplicity itself. You have only to keep your lips parted and to inhale. Ready?”

Sherlock nods. His heart rate has picked up smartly and he has to stop himself from rubbing his palms against his thighs. Which he couldn’t easily do anyway, since Victor is straddling them, and, oh, his prick seems to have got heavier suddenly –

Victor produces a booklet of matches from his back pocket and lights the joint, drawing just hard enough to make the tip flare. Then he does something astonishing: he takes out the joint, holds it while he sucks in a deep breath, says, “Open up now,” in a helium-ish held-breath voice, puts the lit end in his own mouth, and, just brushing Sherlock’s lips with his, whooshes his breath into Sherlock’s open mouth, and a lungful of sweet smoke with it.

Oh … that’s … _fast._ Sherlock’s head goes light for a moment and his arms and legs begin to float loose. It’s so easy, keeping in the smoke “to extract the maximum benefit,” he tells Victor in his own held-breath helium voice, and then he can’t hold his breath anymore because he has to giggle at Victor perched on top of him, holding the joint out for Sherlock to take. “Mind the coal.” Sherlock sucks in air, draws up his lips, takes the joint carefully between his teeth, the coal in his mouth: lets his mouth hover over Victor’s, sends in smoke. He reaches to pluck the crumb of pot he can feel on his lower lip, but Victor says, “Mmm, no, let me,” and licks it away. Takes the joint and shotguns Sherlock again, mouth so close to Sherlock’s, touching-not-touching-then-only-just-touching, then turnabout is fair play one more time and that’s it, nothing left but the sad little roach-end to drop in the ashtray on the bedside table.

But who says there’s nothing left? There’s this, for example: Victor running the flats of his hands up Sherlock’s arms and levering himself downward, pressing his mouth, open, against Sherlock’s open mouth, and kissing the side of Sherlock’s neck while he reaches under to press his hand against Sherlock’s nape. “This mole,” Victor says, smiling, kissing, “and this one,” kissing, “and this _button,_ ” opening button after button after button and sliding Sherlock’s shirt off his shoulders and down his arms, with Sherlock’s eager cooperation that is nevertheless not entirely helpful because Sherlock keeps being distracted by the way Victor’s hair falls in his eyes, and by trying to get Victor to hold still long enough for Sherlock to undo _his_ buttons. Giddiness. “Oooh,” Sherlock says, campy, wide-eyed, “what ill-fitting trousers you have, my dear,” and takes the line of Victor’s hard prick between thumb and forefinger, tutting. Victor gasps and snorts and laughs all at once and his hips judder. “Stop,” he says breathlessly, “stop, I can’t come in these trousers I don’t have another clean pair, no seriously,” and he rolls off Sherlock, laughing, and strips trousers and pants away and rolls back onto Sherlock. His cock is shining at the tip; for a moment, Sherlock can’t breathe at all.

“You, now you,” Victor says, “oh but no, wait, if I want you to get your clothes off so I can get you off I have to get off you,” which makes Sherlock _howl_ and shove ruthlessly at him, “don’t I?” Victor says to the air in general. Sherlock drags himself up and – he may never have gotten out of his clothing so quickly, not even counting that time when he was experimenting with the fire ants. Victor tugs him back down to the bed and rolls on top again. “Now,” Victor says, “now I’ve got you where I want you, Sherlock Holmes,” and bites his left pectoral just hard enough to sting.

The sensation of Victor’s naked skin against Sherlock’s own is unprecedented. Warm soft hard smooth. The acute angle between the line of Victor’s collarbone and the slope of his shoulder. Left, right. Victor’s armpits. Fresh sweat. The smell of pot smoke clinging to both of them. The errant eyelash that Sherlock observed earlier has vanished now. Sherlock needs to close his eyes anyway, against the fantastic shock of seeing Victor lick his palm and then take both their pricks into his wetted hand. _If an eyelash falls unobserved, can it be visualized?_ The question makes no sense and Sherlock is in no condition to formulate a better one, but that hardly matters, because of Victor’s _hand_ and Victor nipping at Sherlock’s earlobe and at the skin of his neck and shoulder; Sherlock’s hands have found their way to the curve of Victor’s arse, this despite Sherlock’s complete lack of any conscious volition at the present moment, so Sherlock feels every movement of Victor’s hips both from underneath Victor and from behind him, intoxicating; now they’re rocking together, Sherlock and Victor, SherlockandVictor, with urgency, and something exhilarating and lightning-hot-fast licks up and down and through and out – there is no reason, is there, for orgasm to be so much more satisfying in this context than it is when Sherlock masturbates, since Sherlock has taken careful note of all his physiological responses with a view to maximizing the sensations he can afford himself, but this is – this is – and Victor is crying out, “Oh, now, now, I – ” and Sherlock wraps his arms and legs around his friend and … what a peculiar tenderness! As unprecedented and surprising, in its way, as the improved quality of orgasm when achieved in conjunction with a partner. Or perhaps just with Victor; after all, Sherlock has a sample of only one.

*

These are the rituals after sex, as Sherlock now learns: an interval of embracing and nuzzling; then, with the intrusion into their consciousness that they are sticky, the damp, warm facecloth or the shower; and then the shared cigarette, after which the partners may doze, or sleep, or rise and dress.

*

The shared cigarette. Before he met Victor Trevor, Sherlock smoked Sobranie Black Russians. He had taken up cigarettes at fifteen, in deliberate fashion, giving some thought to the choice of brand and settling on Sobranie Blacks for their expense and unusual appearance which might, he hypothesized, help tilt others’ perception of himself a fraction away from “weird” and toward “exotically posh.” Indeed the bullying did seem to die down somewhat, though any number of confounding factors made it impossible to be certain of the causes or cause.

Victor, though, hooted the first time he and Sherlock took coffee together and Sherlock brought out his packet of cigarettes. “What’re those in aid of? Do they taste that much better?”

Sherlock was forced to admit he didn’t know. The first cigarettes he bought were Sobranies and he’d never tried any other.

“Here” – Victor pushed his own packet toward Sherlock. Mayfair: about as downmarket as it was possible to be. “If you still think yours are worth the difference, I’ll buy you dinner. If you don’t think they’re worth it, then you buy for me.”

“What’s to prevent my lying for the sake of a free dinner?”

“Pfff,” Victor said – as though the idea of Sherlock lying for gain were preposterous. This was among Sherlock’s first inklings that Victor might not simply want something from him – might, actually, like him. So Sherlock did lie: he told Victor he couldn’t tell the difference between the Sobranies and the Mayfairs, and he took Victor out for good Italian food, and he never bought Sobranies again.

*

The packet he holds in his hand right now, in November of 2026, are Mayfairs.

*

Their affair lasted nearly a year. It was Sherlock who broke it, of course – broke Victor too – by working out, on a long weekend visit with Victor’s father, that the elder Trevor was wanted for embezzling in Australia and that his quondam partners in crime were now blackmailing him. Or rather: it would have been one thing to deduce all this, but to say it was another matter. Mr. Trevor had been coping, just, with the anxiety of blackmail; on hearing Sherlock’s revelations, he fainted, striking his head on the corner of his own desk, and bled intracranially to such an extent that he was never able to walk or talk again. Victor, weeping as the ambulance screamed away, said something Sherlock has never quite understood: “The truth isn’t everything, you bastard.” That was the last they saw each other.

Sherlock has asked himself, since, whether he was in love; he rather thinks Victor was. Victor’s affection lit something in Sherlock – he might call it hope, but there’s a reason, isn’t there, why Hope came fluttering last out of a box of curses? (Sherlock never did delete Edith Hamilton, whose renderings of those old tales provide a remarkably accurate guide to _mortal_ doings if not to those of divinities.)

*

He and Victor must have looked beautiful together: nineteen, both of them, tall and brilliant. Victor had longish straight hair, so blond it seemed translucent with the sun behind it; Sherlock liked to swing it like a curtain over Victor’s eyes and back again.

Often Victor would glance up teasingly from under his fringe as he sucked Sherlock.

As for Sherlock’s own looks, he sold them often enough, in the very bad time after Victor, to know exactly what sort of impression they made.

He wasn’t shotgunning joints anymore amid spring breezes on a lover’s bed; instead, there was the cocaine and there was the heroin and there was the cocaine-plus-heroin combination platter too. But what was worse than the drugs was the loneliness; there had never been anyone like Victor before, and Sherlock made certain there would not be another. Whom he was protecting would be hard to say.

The scars on his inner arms came in those years, and one shallow knife wound, and the kick in the knee that he believed he had completely recovered from but that recalls itself exactly now, in the relief he feels at sitting on a bench after a walk of less than an hour’s duration.

His forehead is lined. The corners of his eyes are lined. There’s a bullet scar just to the right of his sternum, and the geography of his back was made by a Serbian whip. He broke his wrist going off Barts’ roof; fifteen years later, it aches on damp days – on half of every year’s days, that is.

He has bronchitis half a dozen times a year between September and April, and this autumn has been the worst yet.

John has a paunch, and baggy eyes; his hair is thin and he always, always wakes in the middle of the night needing a pee. Sherlock has loved him from the moment he limped into Molly Hooper’s morgue and handed over his phone. He sends John a text and shakes the last cigarette out of the packet of Mayfairs; then he gets up to go home.

_John. Forgive me. I shall devote every effort to the attempt to grow old with you. –SH_

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from Gerard Manley Hopkins’s ["Spring and Fall."](http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173665)
> 
> Warm thanks to MirithGriffin for her speedy and superlative beta help.
> 
> As of November 2014, when this was written, smoking remained legal in London’s public parks, but I assume that by the period in which the story takes place, that will no longer be true. The brand(s) of cigarettes I give Sherlock reflects pure speculation on my part: because it's illegal to advertise cigarettes in the UK, no brand name appears on the show.
> 
> The last time I shotgunned pot was probably, oh, 1983, so I have supplemented those pleasant memories with Google Video. Corrections are welcome concerning changes in pot-smoking practice between my well-spent youth and the era of Sherlock’s affair with Victor.


End file.
